around three turkish and free syrian army troops approach the town bus loads of people are believed to be on their way to our free. eight million cubans are voting for a new national assembly in the coming hours the new members of the assembly will decide on a successor to eighty six year old raul castro who steps down next month will be the first time in almost sixty years that a new president will be chosen from outside the castro family. the founder of france's far right national front has lost his last remaining position losses daughter marine le pen has been reelected as leader the move comes at a crucial time for le pen as she hopes to broaden the party's appeal show marie le pen was expelled in twenty fifteen over anti semitic remarks but he had kept the on reposition of president until now. and very thing is underway in a by election in hong kong where pro-democracy activists are hoping to win back the solar power in the legislature police detained a number of protesters outside the polling station with the city's leader cast

ballots. those are your headlines more news here on al-jazeera of the inside story . they have traded insults and threats now the u.s. president and north korea leaders say valid meat can donald trump gets kim jong un to give up his nuclear ambitions and what does feel young want from the talks this is inside story.

allow and welcome to the program. they have taken the weld by complete surprise us president donald trump north korea leader kim jong un have agreed to sit down together and the historic meeting could take place within two months they have spent much of the past year hurling insults at each other trumps cold kim little rocket man game set trump was mentally deranged so what will they talk about when they come face to face there's only one topic being mansion nuclear weapons it was an only voice from south korea that's made the announcement about the meeting delivering games invitation direct to trump of the white house trump was quick to say yes on his twitter account but on what terms the white house says no preconditions but there have been mixed messages mike hanna has more from washington d.c. . it appeared that the u.s. had introduced new preconditions when the press secretary said that the meeting

would not take place unless north korea provided strong guarantees and took strong steps to indicate the authenticity of its position however subsequently administration officials said that mr sanders was not introducing new preconditions they said she was indeed emphasizing the consequences should north korea continue or resume nuclear or missile testing or interfere with the joint military exercises taking place between the u.s. and south korea but there is confusion underscores the developments that have occurred with president trump leaping headfirst into a potential face to face negotiation many expressing concern that negotiations such as these begin from the bottom up that the face to face meeting between leaders comes at the end of a process not at the very beginning in addition some experts point out the north

koreans have had decades of negotiating deals with various states the trumpet ministration new to the game they going to be at a disadvantage in any negotiation with the north koreans should it take place from the very beginning news of the proposed meeting has made headlines around the world but in north korea itself you might not have heard anything about it right mcbride is in the south korean capital seoul. if you are in north korea right now and you do not have access to an outside source of information then you will not know about the historic summit in all six pages of the rod long since this is the state controlled main party newspaper there is not one mention of it the only related item is an article that attacking the latest u.s. sanctions which it says are a further provocation possibly leading to war the problem in north korea is

a propaganda machine that turns out a daily diet of common trees all the tacking the imperialist united states as the great war monger how do you now turn around and tell your people your leader is about to sit down and have a friendly chat with the leader of your arch enemy even harder it seems will be explaining that in preparation for this is sturrock summit you have put on hold work on your intercontinental ballistic missile this has been heralded as a great achievement of the socialist north korea the thing that will offer salvation from the very same imperialist americans it seems the north koreans need time to work out this complicated narrative in order to be able to explain it to its people looking even further ahead becomes the prospect perhaps of normalized relationship if this talks continue between north korea and the united states maybe

even relations veering towards possibly the friendly or at least less hostile should that happen north korea it seems will have to perform some kind of propaganda contortionists act in order to explain it all luckily for the people in the propaganda department that prospect does seem a long way off. let's bring in our panel joining us from saw b.j. kim a junk professor. city of funding studies in exeter in the u.k. a then foster carter one or a senior research fellow in sociology and walden korea at leeds university and in washington d.c. which is why its director of the center for political military analysis of the hudson institute welcome to you all i would like to start by asking mr kim this i mean what we know so far is that the north korean leader kim jong un met with the south korean national security advisor and then extended through him the invitation

for president trump to meet do you think. this is it a simple as this of these more to this particular story there are reports in korea that there is a undisclosed message coming from kim jong il and two. and there are wild speculations here and there are different scenarios but we don't have information here and we cannot even confirm whether there was indeed this great message but indeed that's what we are hearing so i think your point is very ballot just the invitation and acceptance i mean the station i don't think it explains everything there has to be a lot of information an exchange of information going on that might have happened behind the scenes so i agree with you or observation or speculation that there is much more exchanged behind in the mrs a than for such a dramatic development isn't it because i mean from the chest beating swashbuckling over the last few months suddenly we're talking about diplomacy and what could be

potentially a glimmer of hope what do you think has prompted this dramatic shift in diplomacy well i i i'm one of those who think that it's possible that. the severity of the sanctions now being imposed by the international community and by that really against north korea maybe has helped bring it to the negotiating table i would also give credit to president when j. and of south korea who is very much the person who has arranged all of this but with that comes a copy at just in case any of us have forgotten we haven't heard any of this from koreans yet not even the into korean summit which i think is a much firmer thing we have the south koreans would for both print leader has agreed to step across the military demarcation line in the south and so on and now once again it's the most bizarre breach of protocol to have the south koreans a foreign government a close ally of the u.s.

on the white house floor late at night with no americans in sight and not this thing is happening. it's all a bit weird we would go so far as to say i'm not sure that the trump kim jong un meeting will ever happen i don't know if my panelists agree there say what he has to to cross since that it's let's let's wait and see but yes we have a fingers crossed springs eternal missa one it's i mean how significant is this development do you think it is also saying because sanctions are paying off or as others say just because kim jong il is trying to showcase that he is gentle with those beasts. there are other factors that come into play at the moment we can't tell which are the most important so you mentioned sanctions you mentioned the public diplomacy effort of the north koreans i would add related to that is in a way if it just goes for meeting then it's a north korean again because they've been for a long time trying to get a high profile meeting with an american leader and normally the u.s.

has conditioned that on certain requirements related to their telling their nuclear missile program so it would be in their interest for a meeting to occur in any case there may have been a wall china and russia may have played some role i know they've been pressing north korea to to compromise in some issues and it could also be the north koreans have under gates a very robust missile a nuclear test program over the past year and a half and they probably gained a lot of data from that and they don't really need to test either of these two systems in the near term and what they need to do is develop their to live a warhead they can carry the the nuclear. explosive device on a missile and for that they can just take a few months and if this gives more time to work on it and if the there are no meeting takes place or even if one does they can just resume in a much better place i see if i was all to north korea's advantage to agree to this even though they haven't said anything what the u.s.

and south korea and japan others need to think about is what are they going to condition this meeting. and we were told what they hope to get how much are they willing to sacrifice in titanfall games was done to talk about the regional implications mr kim meant moon jane has been trying over the last few months to get close try to broker in the sons of. over an agreement does he stand now is he excited about the potential of a meeting between the u.s. president of north korean leader i'm sure is there because if they knew about it he has repeatedly said he's object to intermediate or objective or immediate objective was to build a bridge between washington and pyongyang in terms of having folks in the leaders so he has achieved that goal so he has you know reason to be excited about it the in terms of big picture about where the current government of south korea is heading there has been

a lot of question whether there is the ultimate goal in sight or it has any ideas i don't think we have had much information about that yet but for now and this is a clear victory for jane because he has reiterated many times. before. you go to a meeting with no preconditions but at the same time you absolutely have no idea about the outcome of the meeting and do you see this as a political gamble by trump. i think like i think every other commentator it's an absolutely massive political gamble and you correctly identify it with president trump i mean from what we're getting of the the genesis of this whole idea you know what star input was there from the state department zero rex tillerson the secretary of state wasn't wasn't even told a few hours earlier on the trip in africa had said they were far from talks with north korea's had to row back now apparently not even any immediate stuff was on hand in the white house he just happened the south koreans he was president thomas

supposed to meet the south korean delegation who were indeed briefing him on their visit to coming out the next day but he had they were in the building he wandered in they read aide kim jong un's apparent message and president trump of his own back said sure at a certain level you admire the boldness of course his great shtick is he's the deal maker he can cut through all the red tape and all the stuff but at the same time you know diplomacy is as someone has already said that this is not diplomacy this is the eggo ism if you don't have you know a concrete plan preconditions i mean they're going to have to get their skates on really fast particular if it is going to happen by the end of may when they're not sure about that but you know a lot of preparation to what exactly is going to come out of this on message just you know just optics and so was this the north korean issue has been described as the biggest challenge facing the u.s. administration for decades but then the state department seems to be elaine does this say more about the way tom handles politics of the white house or is it more

about a huge problem within the administration itself about tackling strategic issues like a overtures towards north korea. i would point out that this the the the disconnection between the state department the defense department intelligence committee national security council is a rear current problem in us foreign policy we might my institution and others participate about ten years ago trying to work on how to improve the interface between the white house and the other executive agencies because there's always problems with quite nation with but the department trying to do their own thing with imbalances and funding between apartments and so on so what we're seeing now is not something particularly new. there is a different factor in that you're the president trumps approach diplomacy is a bit different from previous presidents and he appears very comfortable with these leadership meetings peers seem very much influenced by the people who talks to in

foreign governments and so much less interested in receiving detailed briefings from the state department telegin and so on so it may be somewhat exacerbated in the current administration but this this this disconnect a problem the hopefully as as are as a as adrian said well they will sort this out over the next month or so so they'll come man with a clear set of priorities talking point something that's comfortable for the south koreans and the japanese who may rightfully be concerned about being not having enough access to those talks but i think it's nothing irretrievable the moment so i think they can they can certainly make this up but i wouldn't read i mean this this kind of confusion is very common for the regime given them so involved in macon. mississippi i mean you said that the south korean president general sentiment is one of excitement to south korea but when you look back at history there's been this agreed framework of months you know if you full followed by the agreement of

two thousand and two two thousand and six or collapsed within months i mean why was this one. if it ever happens could be a breakthrough because others say that north korea not just trying to use it as a tactic when talking right i guess the whole can be found in the way the current situation has been set up i mean you know many media organizations around the world have pointed out that this time what's happening is very much top down the pub leaders condemning them in coming out and donald trump in washington as there are they're making the moves in the past what has been happening is all the working level officials ironed out all the differences and today they went up the ladder and then you know final stage of each prime period of getting to the final point it was you know talking about a summit meetings and then pop the highest level you know get together and so on

and this time you know the pub is pop neither of them were going and then the working level officials are busy to catch up this time so looks like there is that critical difference this time so that we can pin our hopes in the fact that this style of interaction this time is different and therefore possibly there could be a different means all but then again as you reminded us that long history of frustration you know continuous disappointment is always in the back about our minds all of us involved here in seoul and washington everywhere it's possibly get away with another missile and force a because now if this is if this meeting is ever to happen it was definitely i think be about the nuclear rise ation of north korea but this is a term that means i absolutely everything got nothing because i mean i'm for the americas it could be north korea should abandon its arsenal but all three as i say get the same time the americans should do the same thing i mean how can they not with that differences about this particular issue. with great difficulty i mean to

me the big question about this whole summit you know when it actually happens what the agenda will look like could be summed up in two words who moves the stated positions of both governments over many has don't seem to give very much hope for middle ground excuse me a second. full of winter cold here in england i do apologize so who moves and it's very important denuclearization there's a misunderstanding here north korea has not offered itself as the only subject of the sentence of denuclearization they have agreed to discuss again if we believe the south korean into media is and i do the denuclearization of the whole peninsula ah that's quite a different thing and we've been there before many times in the previous talks which as you said collapse usually after a few years not a few months for me to rest of us think about this but of course there's a quid pro quo if the north koreans are ever going to give up their nuclear arsenal the threat against them which israel although it's also defensive i mean has to go

down as well and their conditions for that in the past have been pretty tough the ending of the u.s. are ok alliance the withdrawal of south korean troops from the peninsula there and so on there's no way south korea is going to agree to that so you know it unless we somehow find that there's been a real shift by but even if it will criticize them for simply not the u.s. and south korean side i don't see these talks actually getting anywhere a photo op maybe but beyond that what can it be so what you've just heard to what mr inforce has been saying about the challenge of the above the whole idea of the nuclear allies ation in terms of stein i mean the u.s. the authenticity of the u.s. foreign diplomacy with augusta north korea has been based on the idea of incentives for the north koreans to abandon their program but that if the if that doesn't work then they would go for sanctions this time we don't have any idea. about what is the u.s. approach when it comes to engaging the north koreans. right to be fair to the

administration they undertook a very comprehensive policy review when they came into office of the first one before the iran review and so on and they developed a wide range of possible options from the one hand they consider just accepting a north korean nuclear program so you have a mutual the term relationship such as we have with russia on the side that was unacceptable a previous ministrations the other extreme various first uses of military force either an all or invasion or we've heard recently about this single strike to try and intimidate them they reviewed possibly assassinating the north korean side so they went through the entire gamut and considered all the options and basically could decided to focus on diplomacy trying to work with the chinese and other countries to induce a change in your screen saver and sanctions to try and put pressure on the north korean government as well as and key to its ability to build up its import them

carol and technology needs for a nuclear missile program an addition to build up the defenses of the united states missile defenses conventional fences and those of japan and south korea and so that and so it's clear what they've been doing which is actually pretty some of the what previous ministrations is doing still in that more intense you would find many people who would disagree with you about this this is a missile one it's a let me go to mr kim even japan which is one of the top lines of the u.s. was completely caught by surprise when it comes to this it shows really concerned about the american women's. yeah i did notice that the problem but the thing is in terms of how this immediately directly involved players could have played out this game better i don't think we have a and the other alternative here there has been so much objectivity between soul and tell them how to get it all together and i don't think they just had a chance to notify japan or even beijing i know is concerned as well the thing is

everything progress so fast i mean the agreement that we came up with so far is something that most of the service had anticipated may be taking place in in a year or two or even three years and then we got here which is a very upset alliterative case and of course that the way i think it's natural to have but not enough time to a notify our neighbors we do understand now japan and china may actually insist upon going back to the old post the six party talks and we can see their interest in it and definitely they don't want to be left out from here and of course to washington seoul and press they've been telling them will have a two point take into account of their desires as well so that will be important fact that they keep in my muscle far we just didn't have time to because of the best missile why should this be seen as a major victory a full north korea leader kim jong un well so far it's not temporary gain i mean

what the u.s. has done by the same will meet with him is something we've in the past demanded certain preconditions for the administration is starting to make clear what those preconditions may be and so it could be again i don't know major not yet but it's certainly. something that could yield gains for north korea or for everybody if we actually reach a deal with the kim this is going to be my last question should the meeting take place where do you think it will. oh i don't think it will be likely to take place in washington. based individual sanctions and so on anybody charges so very slight possibility for him to travel all the way to washington and then again i cannot imagine why all the way comparing on dad would just not look good at all

because of the overall situation you know seeing north korea as the party that has pro bowl kate it all along so it will probably in my own thinking have to be about third place and one of the good third place would be south korea so i think there is a considerable chance for this summit meeting between trump and condone taking place somewhere in south korea if not into the camp rossini maybe one of the resort areas also south korea is the one place i would be watching for the summoning. b.j. kim a don't force a concert which is why i say enjoyed having the conversation with you thank you very much indeed and thank you too for watching you can see the program again and its time by visiting a website i was just dot com for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com for was last a.j. it's i sorry you can also join the conversation on twitter i'll handle a.j. inside a story from the house and the whole team here by financial and in

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